The New Nationalism

When, in the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev said, “We will bury you,” and, “Your children will live under communism,” Eisenhower’s America scoffed.

By 1980, however, the tide did indeed seem to be with the East.

America had suffered a decade of defeats. Southeast Asia had fallen. The ayatollah had seized power in Iran. Moscow had occupied Afghanistan. Cuban troops were in Ethiopia and Angola. Grenada and Nicaragua had fallen to the Soviet bloc. Eurocommunism was all the rage on the continent.

No longer do we hear chatter about “The End of History” and triumph of democratic capitalism, of America imposing her “global hegemony” or leading mankind into “a second American century.”

The hubris is gone, and triumphalism has given way to anxiety, apprehension, alarm.

In an essay, “The Return of Toxic Nationalism,” Robert Kaplan, a geopolitical analyst for Stratfor, writes that Western elites are even yet failing to see the larger, darker picture of our evolving world.

These elites identify with the like-minded in other lands and “prefer not to see the regressive and exclusivist forces … that are mightily reshaping the future.”

Egypt and the Mideast offer “a panorama of sectarianism and religious and ethnic divides. Freedom, at least in its initial stages, unleashes not only individual identity but, more crucially, the freedom to identify with a blood-based solidarity group. Beyond that group, feelings of love and humanity do not apply.”

This is “a signal lesson of the Arab Spring,” and out of it will likely come an “Islamist-Nasserite regime” in Cairo.

“Asia is in the midst of a feverish arms race,” writes Kaplan. Nationalism there is “young and vibrant — as it was in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.” Having consolidated the homeland, China is moving to annex her adjacent seas, and a formerly pacifist Japan is “rediscovering nationalism as a default option.”

Nationalism is “alive and thriving in India and Russia,” with New Delhi building armed forces that will be among the world’s largest.

“Race hatred against Muslims is high among Russians, and just as there are large rallies by civil-society types, there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by Western media.”

A weakening European Union has spawned a “resurgence of nationalism and extremism in … Hungary, Finland, Ukraine and Greece.”

“We are truly in a battle between two epic forces,” says Kaplan, “those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized religion.”

How should the United States deal with this darkening age?

“Because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation — and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disordered world.”

But is this not itself utopian?

A great religious awakening is taking place from Morocco to Mindanao. If these hundreds of millions believe there is no God but Allah and he has shown the way to eternal life, why would they, why should they, tolerate pastors and preachers from heretical and false faiths?

How do we preach women’s equality — an easy access to divorce contraception and abortion — to people who swear by a sacred book that says you kill people like that?

How do we preach the blessings of racial and ethnic diversity to a world where, as Kaplan writes, ethnonationalism and tribalism are being embraced and people are willing to die to create nations where their own kind and their own culture are dominant if not exclusive?

Before we put our “values” up there with our vital interests, as the object of our foreign policy, what exactly are we talking about?

Do Americans in the grip of a social-moral-cultural war even agree among themselves on “values”?

Our First Amendment protects freedom of speech to call the Prophet vile names. Our freedom of the press protects pornography. Our freedom of religion means all religions are to be equally excluded from public schools.

Other nations believe in indoctrinating their children in their own beliefs and values. Where do we get the right to push ours in their societies?

When did the internal affairs of foreign nations become the portfolio of American diplomats? Did James Madison’s first minister to Russia, John Quincy Adams, demand that Czar Alexander free the serfs?

“Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation,” says Kaplan.

But that is not our history. America has indeed been about ideas, but America is now and has always been about more, much more than abstract ideas.

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33 Responses to The New Nationalism

Kaplan says there are only two choices: “those of integration based on civil society and human rights, and those of exclusion based on race, blood and radicalized religion.” So if you don’t want to integrate to some massive block like the EU you are then essentially a radical, or if you don’t want your people to replaced by a new one, like Japan refuses to do, you reject civil society (the fact is Japan is way more civil than one gets in cities like Los Angeles).

If Kaplan really wants some universal abstract foreign policy, why not follow Switzerlands policy of absolute neutrality, this is the infinitely more civilized and “universal” than anything that Stratfor recommends.

Interesting column with very strong ideas, but this example—”Did James Madison’s first minister to Russia, John Quincy Adams, demand that Czar Alexander free the serfs?”—doesn’t work. The Czar would have laughed at a represenative of a slaving nation asking for emancipation of serfs.

Pat, Krushchev’s prediction that America’s children will live under Communism has come to fruition. Although in modified form, all 10 Planks to the Communist Manifesto are in place in America today. The Income Tax,Central Banking and Credit,Public Education and so forth. With that said wasn’t it George Washington who once said “Beware of foreign entanglements.” For America to become involved in trying to erect and maintain a World Empire is the height of folly and has helped bankrupt our nation. Once the Neocons and Globalists started to influence and direct America”s foreign policy the die was cast. America forgot about it’s roots and what made America unique and successful. Your comments about sticking America’s nose into the internal affairs of foreign 3rd World countries is right on point. Eventually this policy will “blow back” on the American nation and cause great harm to our nation. It is inevitable.

PJB mistakes the fight as a neocon battle between civilizations, while correctly identifying the feminist memes of contraception, abortion, divorce, and gay rights as the fault lines. As Christendom withered and was replaced by Judeo Christian Lite . Live and let live, women in combat, with gay marriage and pink washed israel, the feminist memes reappear–the battle line is between Abrahamaic Patriarchy and Pagan Matriarchy.

Does loyalty to ones ethno and historical traditions explain the conservatives defense of anti-traidtions, matriarchy, and the desire to bring condoms and ‘Sex and the City” to Kabul?

‘How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Afghanistan? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’, …

“How do we preach the blessings of racial and ethnic diversity to a world where, as Kaplan writes, ethnonationalism and tribalism are being embraced and people are willing to die to create nations where their own kind and their own culture are dominant if not exclusive?”

Have you ever noticed what some of your readership says on this point? I’m not entirely sure that these values are held generally by Americans. There is some strong evidence to suggest that this is not the case. Pot calling kettle black and all that.

As for the world “darkening” because the U.S. is not as confident as it was, well, I don’t really buy that. The past was very much darker. Don’t let a flicker of the candle undo your confidence.

Public education was a strength of the American Democracy long before Birchers and Libertarians began clawing it back so the rest of us could be as ignorant as they. The US policy of interferring in the affairs of others, mostly so our corporations can engorge themselves further, has already “blownback”. The US will have allies only as long as we have the biggest stick. The US has no cred when it comes to “blessings of racial and ethnic diversity”.

Absolute nonsense–Muslim is NOT a race, it is a religious and, thus, a cultural affiliation. While there is a racial component (not very significant) in Russian “nationalism” (or whatever is understood under this term by Mr. Kaplan), it is a cultural issue which is at the heart of a growing internal tensions in Russia.

there are also marches and protests by skinheads and neo-Nazis, who are less well-covered by Western media.

Yes, there are and they should be covered–the problem (for Kaplan) though is in the fact that he has no point of reference whatsoever when trying to point out Russian “neo-nazis” (their “rallies” sometimes can gather the whole….. hundreds of participants)–he better study Russia’s 20 Century history (especially 1940-s) before giving credence to, otherwise, marginal (and exotic for Russia) neo-Nazi movement. As usual, the most important things go unnoticed.

It is singular that all people in every corner of the globe are allowed to express their own sense of nationalism without being condemned as fascist or racist, except for the peoples of Western Europe and North America. Why is that?

There comes a time in a systems life when they need to withdraw, engage in some self assessment, excuse themselves from giving what they cannot afford, regroup and get their bearings before proceeding.

This our time, whether we will have the courage or the leadership who understands this practice and what it offers to future success is another matter.

In much the same way conservatives may have to risk, being still, to comprehend their next course.

I want to extend Rossbach’s comment. I’m afraid that I am a sectarian nationalist. I chafe a bit never being able to defend a tradition as my own.

Throughout my life, accommodations have been made, in the face of popular opposition, to illegal immigrants and their employers. Today, enough non-Americans have occupied the United States, that it is democratically impossible to oppose open borders.

I’m worried about where a government-of-laws-not-men, freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, the right to bear arms, and the prohibition against unreasonable search will be in the list of ballot-box priorities of our new citizens.

I fear it may be time to say, “Good-bye to you too, old Rights-of-Man.”

I thought the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of Vietnam under the Communists as opening the way for the US to have normal relations with that country, once a period of mourning for defeat was passed. The US sulked a very long time, however.

Should one observe here that the relative decline of the wealth and power of the US owes a good deal to idiotic squandering of fantastic sums on unnecessary weapons, ill-considered foreign military adventures, etc etc?

Aren’t you conservatives, both paleo- and neo-, constantly harking to America’s Christian heritage? Christianity is historically a universal religion, and many of the ideologies and philosophies (Communism to liberal democracy) are modeled upon Christianity’s universal nature. Why now harking upon the gospel of ‘blood and soil’, I thought this philosophy was discredited in WW2 … I thought you would deem it inferior to the superior truths of a universal religion like Christianity. Instead, you seem to be the John the Baptist of Blood Nationalism, heralding the final eclipse of the West and its spent ideologies like Communism, liberal democracy and yes, Christianity.

Should one perhaps observe here that in the US, a pundit may view that lead picture as a cause for alarum (“The New Nationalism”) … while a fella on Madison Avenue may very well see it as a cause for inspiration (“Barbie’s New Fashion Accessory”)?

Communisn as explained by Marx, is quite anti-thetical to Christianity, and christianity does not serve as a foundation of communism in any manner.

And while referencing Vietnam is convenient, it is out of context with the policy agenda of neo-conservatives today. Vietnam is born out of a response to communism as a direct threat to the United States. Shortly after WWII it was believed that the communists were engaged in a global campaign to engulf western countries the US inparticular in a global strategy to strangle and eventually consume democracy and capitalism. Almost all of US strategic foreign policy of that period was a reaction to what was formerly called, “the domino theory”. Our assumptions about Vietnam and communism may have been naive, but they were defensive in nature and part of a western or US goal to contain the spread.

The foreign policy of today has little bearing on that scenario. Now it is possible to draw conclusions about military invasion and occupation. But that period saw the spread of military use in that fashion by liberals/democrats – not the neo-cons of today. These complaints are out of context in addressing a global strategy – incorrect may be a better word.

As to the loss of in Vietnam. It was a political loss of sorts. I think there were deep misgivings about the North’s commitment to the two nation solution. But the United States population had so turned against its continued occupation that no will could be mustered to return military response beyond evacuation —- militarily, the North lost and we not there to respond to their treaty violations.

Anyone complaining about the effectiveness of the Judeo-Christian philosophy, despite its ills of the United States, has served its populace extremely well — or turn in your Ipod, apple computer at the nearest recycle bin.

Even the blacks living in the country have not up and jumped ship to Africa or anywhere else, but for very few. Despite a horrific history, blacks in the worst cities and the best suburban housing tracts agree, that the judeo-christian ethic has served them very well. Even the government services, which liberals have turned into a boon doggle, owe their existence to the christian ethic of charity —-

There’s only thing worse for the country than bad policy, that is bad policy developed and led by hypocritesof the worst order. Nearly every democrat pushed for, defended, and continue the use of the military with the hope f advancing democratic rule: Libya, Syria (let’s not pretend we are not engaging covert support), we pushed Mubarak by threatening military sanctions against its military — a near must for anyone leading the country.

So before some of continue this whine about US policy, remember, the neocons were of both parties and had the support of wealthy conservatives and liberals alike.

Yes, Islam is not a race, but of course in the Russian Federation, Muslims tend to be non-Russian (in the sense of not being Slavic Great Russians).

This being true, Russians have very few (compared to Caucasus) issues with predominantly Muslim Tartars. Some of them, of course, can look as European as, say, French or Italian. In the same time, Russians have very few (if any) issues with mainly (Orthodox) Christian Ossetins who are as native to Caucasus as Chechens, Ingushs, Avars or Azeris. In fact, it is impossible, most of the time, to distinguish (“racially” speaking) any Ossetin from above mentioned Muslim natives of Caucasus. They do, indeed, look the same. In many respects it is also true in regards to Armenians, but they are a separate issue altogether for Russians. The issue, which Kaplan refers to, in Russia has very little to do with “race” (and, most of the time–ethnicity) it is a profoundly cultural issue, first and foremost–that is of incompatibility of values.

All these clash of civilization articles miss a fundamental point. People are moved by local politics and communities. Not ‘isms’. What we’re seeing in Egypt, Morocco, Libya, etc. is not a rise in liberal, Jeffersonian Democrats nor extremists who want to kill Christians but a large social conservative population who are suspcious of the West.

The prefix of Judeo to Christendom has not been a merger with the sublime conservative family ethics of the Torah observent Orthodox but rather the surrender of traditionalism to a hostile , secular, neo marxist strain in the diaspora.

The natural values alliance is between the conservative Christians, Mormons, Reconstructionists, Eastern Church adherents, Ultra Orthodox anti zionist Jews, and even traditionlists in the Asian religions including Islam. Coming together, if not on the punishments, but on the moral prescriptions of Leviticus , would go along a way towarrds building a manly cosmopolitan uniquely American conservatism.

When the American fighters were caught doing the dirty work great or small and their domestic enemies howled for meat, the Kaplans and other scholars were silent. Faithless and false, be accursed. And I daresay begone.

Kaplans and their ilk allegiances to America is to it’s POWER, not it’s ideals. Of course we pay the Academy well too..and let it play RISK with our soldiers and treasure.

It’s not America or it’s time ending. America is far too strong in it’s own shores. It’s this Clerisy’s rule that is ending, far from helping them we should hasten their departure.

And America was always more than ideas, or ideals.

We should welcome nationalism..for of whatever hue or stripe, we have a common enemy – the American Ruling Clerisy.

Why when seeing our Ruling Class treat America as their El Dorado – a giant mountain of Gold to be looted and the hapless natives enslaved and ruined – shouldn’t the most modest villager take up arms?

I have borne arms against some of those villagers. They’re still enemies – doubt it not , we’ll never be friends – but the time of Kaplans has passed. Above all else you don’t win…which is rather key in war you know.

Karl Marx came from a family of Jews converted to Protestant Christianity, … an example of the Judeo-Christian ethic par excellence. Can we agree at least that Communism is a bastard child of Judeo-Christianity? And in its proselytizing zeal at least, Communism is the true successor of Christianity, and those democracy fetishists neo-cons the successors of the Trotskyite Communists?

And Judeo-Christianity a boon to African Americans? Really? Ask their slave ancestors who forcibly converted to Christianity by white slave Christians.

And Judeo-Christianity is responsible for Apple?? Really?? An Eastern philosophy loving Mr. Steve Jobs would take issue with that I’m afraid!!

Let’s talk about what exactly we are talking about. First, let’s call out the merchants of death since the nationalism we might worry over is not a bunch of tribes chucking spears at one another. Capitalism is in the grips of short sighted forces of greed and has evolved into organized crime. Organized crime exists to supply outlawed or essential demand and provide protection for it. Let’s stop worrying about idealogy, ethnic differences and culture since those are just tools used by money to encourage conflict and sell weapons to each side. When are we, an advanced civilization, going to realize that we are being played by the merchants of death, even to the point of accepting the assault weapon massacres of our own children by responding with chants of liberty and arming public schools. The merchants of death have won in Afghanistan. Why would we let them control our destiny? We have no choice? Sounds like the most current intellectual arguement against CO2 regulation. “We can’t do anything about it anyway since China and India won’t”.
Nationalism does not drive arms sales; arms sales drive nationalism. It is the gun, it aint the person. Wake up!

To EliteCommInc.’s comment on Marx and Christianity. Per JM Roberts, the master narrative of the west is progress. Abraham was told to go, and we’ve been going someplace ever since. Aristotle, Christ, Augustine, Erasmus and Moore all believed that society could and should improve. Marxism is a piece of this narrative, just with God pulled out.

Central Banking is not “communist”…it’s an integral part of the “Capitalist State”…you “free marketeers” don’t understand what capitalism really is…we used to have a “mixed economy”, free enterprise for goods and services, and government control of the excesses of financial speculation that are slowly destroying America’s economy vitality.

The biggest lies of the 20th Century is that Communism was about equality and Capitalism about freedom. The reality is that both are utopian fantasies, that should be rejected by real conservatives.

Just like the fantasy of “flat earth” where the financial elite construct a economy free of ethnic and tribal tensions. Commie or Libertarian..both had the same goals of utopian interdependence, and ironically they are mirror images of each other.

When faced by reality, a Libertarian or a Communist always cowtows to his book of holy rite..the political economy of Das Capital or Human Action. Real conservatives understand the nature of man and reject both ideologies!

I’ve been reading Kaplan’s work for twenty years and his observations can be applied to the US. We are a nation on paper but an “Empire Wilderness” in practice. We are polarized and ethnically fractured into multiple nations within our cities.

Appeciate the response. I am just not sure what it means to my comments. I’ll give it a premature go. Well, I guess one could advance the position, but without a link to Judeo-Christian ethics as you begin with Abraham, I have no clue why you include Karl Marx . . . is not in the Abrahamic tradition.

And as for Abraham going, it is my understanding that Abraham was told to go to a place designated by God. As always, these scriptural references can be troublesome. But given that lineage and given and the assigned code of ethics surrounding that instruction to go to a very specific designated place, taking their code with them, whereever they went, it seems that Karl Marx and Aristotle and those of that dimension — just don’t qualify.

Most importantly as part of the going to that very specific place — they were not to, how did you put it? ” . . .pulled God out.”

Underlying the judeo-christian ethic was a keen understanding that god was in it. Even if they thought there was no god — they accepted some concept of god and that ethic was wrapped up in him. I know that many want to distance themselves from those traditions and certainly there are many tragic incidents, even when we mean well. But in comparison, China, India, Russians, Japanese, Swahilis, French, Italians, reek with disaster and inhumane acts. Given our youth, our fair is a far sight better than theirs and our history cleaner.

JMRoberts, at first the name wasn’t familiar so I did a breif search and was happy to discover that I used to watch his history series on our local cctv, I had a lot of one way arguments. As to his comment as referenced by you —

he should have known better than to suggest such a thing out of context. Aristotle would have loathed Abrahams lack of organization and upon hearing his logos abandoned him to his rantings and predictions of descendents wallowing as slaves as for foretold to him by god? “Doesn’t this fool know that God is passive and but great substance? The man is unhinged.”

Karl Marx, repelled by the notion of some boureiose hierarchy, would have grabbed lot and and whoever he could convince and during some starlit night —- whack. Problem solved. “The man was dictatorial lunatic, God told him? Doesn’t he know there is no God?”

So I have to beg to differ with you and JM Roberts despite his Princeton and Oxford. respectfully . . .

Strange how Kaplan doesn’t mention the obvious example of “dark nationalism”: Israel, taking the last 22 percent of Palestinian land, killing civilians in the streets to provoke them to retaliate feebly, after which Israel can present itself as the victim and kill thousands more Palestinians.

Israel, which does not have mass immigration, something Kaplan (and Israel) advocates for Western countries. Kaplan says this is “dark nationalism” for inferior countries like our Western ones – but it is okay for Israel. When the immigration-critical FPÖ entered government in Austria, Israel withdrew its embassy and was one of the leading powers in isolating Austria diplomatically and financially, to frighten the Austrians into voting pro-immigration again.

Of course, Israel is the Tribe’s country. Kaplan’s relatives in Israel must have racial superiority, while there is mass immigration in the West so that we can never organize a majority to oppose the establishment in the media and politics. One standard for Israel, another standard for the rest of us.

I’m not even sure you can properly call what is happening in the Middle East “nationalism.” Things are breaking down much as they did in the Balkans, with several sectarian and/or ethnic groups in the same geographic territory fighting for separation and dominance. The problem in the Middle East is that these sectarian groups were, up to this time, so intermixed that physical separation is barely possible. If it is achieved, it’s hard to see how any defensible borders can be drawn. The sectarian divides could split families and villages and neighborhoods with a history of generations of intermarriage. This, coupled with a very old Arab tradition of vengeance, leads to a years-long conflict I can’t see the endpoint of. Advocating for minority rights in this milieue is not advisable: said minorities are likely to be armed and may turn to insurrection and insurgency and terrorism to defend their rights themselves.

in a word, No. Communism bares no resemblance to communist doctrine. Charity as is rooted in the Judeo-Christian Ethic, does not require that anyone be removed from their place in order for a life of charity to be manifested.

Charity in the Judeao Christian ethic is voluntary, though I think as I have read and have been told, it is commanded by God. It is not a part of any redistribution of wealth, certainly not by command.

There has been a long history of the call for justice out of the following passage, “Blessed are those who hunger for justice/righteousness, for they shall be filled.” But most of that understanding is born out of the Old Testament, “Do not pervert justice by siding with the wealthy/powerful,” “Do deny the poor Justice,” ” . . . maintain justice in the courts,” Moses’ rescue and exodus. All of that serve as the call for justice and in its Judeo-Christian dynamic, it comes from an Almighty God, and Christ as his son, calls for the same . . . That is model that served the cause of religious liberty, freeing the slaves, and the subsequent civil rights leaders that followed, and none of them called for a redistribution of wealth by overthrowing anyone (well a small number — but in so doing they parted ways with Judeo_Christian princples). The blacks in the US states, especially after slavery were far better equipped than the blacks on the Continent – ravaged by apartehied. The horrors in the US even after slavery existed, but what almost every black knew, the horrors perpetrated in colonial Africa were far worse. I am sure that what many thought as the American ‘promised land’ of full citizenship would be delivered by God, even if hands of men were the instrument. There’s nothing secular in, “Let my people go . . . . Go down Moses, waaaay doooown in Egypt Land . . .” They were not singing about the Egypt (African) of old or the Egypt of new. As on who thinks there’s a long way to go in that stead, Iremain confident that the Judeo_Christian ethic has served, black citizens well.

The entire system we struggle under is predicated on this notion of freedom, and the uniqeness as to accountability of a man firt unto himself – conscience. that the work of his hands should yeild him/her fruit. And that work is protected by patent and copywrite laws, copywrite laws designed to branda creators product as his own, so that others upon recognozing said marks, boundaries, would not steal. They shalt not steal. Enables millions of inventors and self producers, to build, and foster work work for others. I won’t pretend to link the creativity itsself to the Judeo-Christian ethic. But sole ownership is certainly not rooted in Marxist thought or practice. But it is recognized and protected in Judeo-Christian theology and theory. Sure, Apple . . . and so many others are direct benficiaries of the Judeo-Christain model.

I think it is just a man benefit from what he produces and while Marx might snarl at such a notion, Christ would but only say, have wealth, but know who be thy Master and serve him only. He would not suggest that the masses take over the plant and claim ownership.